Is it time to extend Mooney?
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FTR, you could still have the "best team in the history of the school" whether CM is here or not.
I think this argument is mostly a red herring. Who's going to leave? Blake has transferred once, Jacob isn't transferring to sit one for one and neither is Nate. Of the bench you have Burton who has a ton of upside here but is he getting enough run to get the call from higher programs? Crabtree just sat, he's not transferring again. And then you have 4 guys that our own fans can't agree are starter level material, Gus notwithstanding.
Your only risks are Grant and Nick. I doubt either guy wants to break up the band.
But CM will get an extension, I agree. It won't be out of fear of an exodus though.
man, Im glad you arent the negotiator representing UR. We’d be toast.
Why would UR be forced to give him an extension this year? Do u see him going somewhere else making $1.2 a year? Time for UR and Hardt to grow a pair and learn to negotiate. If, after 15 years and many millions with garbage results, CM threatens that he is leaving after this year if he is not extended, dont let the door hit you in the ass pal.
I think your tone detector may be off...
Thanks, those are the ones I thought could. I just don't know enough able their course load...
Why would UR be forced to give him an extension this year? Do u see him going somewhere else making $1.2 a year? Time for UR and Hardt to grow a pair and learn to negotiate. If, after 15 years and many millions with garbage results, CM threatens that he is leaving after this year if he is not extended, dont let the door hit you in the ass pal.
We are going to be worried he might leave??? OMG if that is on Hardt’s mind... wow we are much worse off than imagined.
We are going to be worried he might leave??? OMG if that is on Hardt’s mind... wow we are much worse off than imagined.
I'm a 100% convinced you're posting these probability percentages on this thread just to get a rise out of the posters on this site. No stats class I took at UR would back up the things you say.
Please define your idea of ‘bright’ and when does you definition of the ‘future’ actually arrive?
Things are bright, when great things happen, like having great practices, showing hard work, and overcoming long odds. It is a success if these happen today, tomorrow, next week, or next year. The future occurs in the future. Great things happen tomorrow if the team practices well today. Small successes lead to greatness in the future.
I don't think I understand why our chances improve so much next season? We will have the same exact team next year, which is good of course. But how much better does UR really get next season? Or is the hope everyone else gets a little worse?
I have said before - i don't see any incoming frosh next season cracking the lineup. I think we have a PG coming in - but when you have Gilyard playing 38+ minutes in close and big games, and Francis is right behind him at 32-34 - there is no real room there for someone to grab time. Then you got Sherod, Cayo, Burton, and Wojcik taking up minutes as usual and Grant is being load managed to 25 minutes a night. Only difference I could see next season is possibly Burton getting more time if he improves that much over the summer and he begins to eat more into Sherod and Cayo time.
But otherwise - how do we get better? Our biggest glaring deficiency right now is defense, so if you tell me next season the guys will be better defenders, then yes - our chances go up significantly - but what reason do we have to believe all of sudden next year they will decide to play defense?
I have said before - i don't see any incoming frosh next season cracking the lineup. I think we have a PG coming in - but when you have Gilyard playing 38+ minutes in close and big games, and Francis is right behind him at 32-34 - there is no real room there for someone to grab time. Then you got Sherod, Cayo, Burton, and Wojcik taking up minutes as usual and Grant is being load managed to 25 minutes a night. Only difference I could see next season is possibly Burton getting more time if he improves that much over the summer and he begins to eat more into Sherod and Cayo time.
But otherwise - how do we get better? Our biggest glaring deficiency right now is defense, so if you tell me next season the guys will be better defenders, then yes - our chances go up significantly - but what reason do we have to believe all of sudden next year they will decide to play defense?
We get Crabtree eligible. I think Gustavson, Burton, and one of Sal/Matt will improve. Hopefully we will have a freshman/transfer big man coming in too. Hopefully the crazy depth we should have creates competition and everyone improves a little.
Crabtree is a guard - so you think he is going to eat into Francis time? Possibly Sherod when Sherod disappears, but lets not forget - Sherod is averaging 13 points a game and shooting 41% from 3. Does he Crabtree take over some Cayo minutes - possibly, but don't forget - you already have Gustav and Burton and Wojcik coming off the bench. There are only so many minutes to go around.
Sal/Matt improve - we have not seen much improvement this year, so I don't expect much next season either.
Again - we are banking on this so called "depth" we have, but we really don't. It is certainly better than years past - I will agree on that. The drop off is not as great. But our main weakness is defense - and the only guy who helps that off the bench is Goose. Burton is still young and making mistakes, and Wojcik is an okay defender, but more of a shooter. Matt and Sal are simply 5 fouls to use to load manager Grant at this point.
the argument for an extension should have nothing to do with worrying about him leaving.
if the admin likes the direction, believes in the future (more than the past), likes him as the face of the program, and decides they want to keep him ... then you extend.
we have an incredibly important 5 man recruiting class coming up. I don't want Mooney having a disadvantage there. and despite landing some really good players recently, I know for a fact the lack of clarity on his future as coach here has hurt him on the recruiting trail.
I know I'm in the minority on this board but I think he's a good coach. I'd be fine extending after this season. if we decide we don't want to, then we probably don't want him as the future coach. and prospects will know it.
I'm confused why you don't think we could be better next year with a better chance to dance. When you win (likely) 20+ games and have your whole starting lineup returning, of course your chances to be even better are improved. Not only will all the players be that much better with another year of experience, but, yes, it's more than fair to say some of the top teams in our conference will not be as good because they lose guys. Dayton (if Toppin goes pro as expected), VCU, and Rhode Island each lose a pair of double digit scorers. I could see VCU being about the same again, but I don't see Dayton and Rhode Island being a combined 20-1 at this time next year. If we finish 13-5 or better this year, we very well might even be the pre season favorite to win the conference next year.
How do we get better? How does anyone get better? You practice and work on your game. Every single one of our guys should be better next year, just like they are better this year than they were last year. That is what most college athletes do, especially ones with talent. They get better and better each year.
You ask about defense? We switched to a new defense this year, and the team has improved from 287 last year to currently 90th this year. So, yes, it is possible to improve your defense from one year to the next, and yes, we could be even better defensively next year.
You are making a strange argument. You seem to be criticizing our talent and depth, but then you say things like where will Crabtree play? Crabtree is a good one. If we can't find minutes for him, we are a heck of a lot better off than you are suggesting.
I just wonder if most of this team is at its ceiling. And I agree - we will be very good next season, and the mere fact that everyone else is losing players will help us. But as we saw this year - a lot will depend on our schedule and will we be able to win those big games, especially in OOC.
Offensively - I don't see much room for improvement. We are already scoring 75 points a night. If we have 5 guys add 2 points to their average - we are now at 85 points a night. That would have us leading the country in scoring - simply not going to happen. And honestly - I don't think we need to score more.
Defense is still the biggest issue. Against the better teams on our schedule - we give up a lot of points.
Vandy 92 (OT)
Auburn - 79
Radford - 73
Alabama - 90
SLU - 74
Mason - 87
Dayton - 87
VCU - 87
I do think another season together, especially for Francis and Burton will help defensively. If the team can improve there, and become a team that can be a tough defensive team - against good opponents. Then I agree - UR will get better. Other factor is someone to back up Grant. Sal and Matt are major drops offs right now when they come in the game. Either they improve significantly or there is grad transfer pick up somewhere to alleviate this issue.
Offensively - I don't see much room for improvement. We are already scoring 75 points a night. If we have 5 guys add 2 points to their average - we are now at 85 points a night. That would have us leading the country in scoring - simply not going to happen. And honestly - I don't think we need to score more.
Defense is still the biggest issue. Against the better teams on our schedule - we give up a lot of points.
Vandy 92 (OT)
Auburn - 79
Radford - 73
Alabama - 90
SLU - 74
Mason - 87
Dayton - 87
VCU - 87
I do think another season together, especially for Francis and Burton will help defensively. If the team can improve there, and become a team that can be a tough defensive team - against good opponents. Then I agree - UR will get better. Other factor is someone to back up Grant. Sal and Matt are major drops offs right now when they come in the game. Either they improve significantly or there is grad transfer pick up somewhere to alleviate this issue.
I'm sure we are going to give Mooney some sort of extension not because of his performance but because of our inertia or caring to do anything better especially when our top donor is buddies with Mooney and we want to keep his bank account flowing our way.
He's competing that is the goal for our program to compete. Objective met.
He's competing that is the goal for our program to compete. Objective met.
Very good post, and thanks for explaining things better. I might have been reading you differently earlier. I agree with all of this. We are currently 59th in offensive efficiency and 90th in defensive efficiency. We can improve these a little, but they are already pretty good, so I agree we should not expect too much improvement there.
If we go 23-8 or 24-7 this year, and that is our ceiling, that's still a pretty solid ceiling. I think we would all take that every year. I think we can improve by winning more big games, advancing in the A - 10 tourney, and at this time next year, being on the right side of the bubble instead of the wrong side of the bubble. Our record would not have to be that different for that to happen.
If we get better next year, that team would have been expected to win the games at VCU, against Radford, against SLU and at Alabama. That would be my expectation. We'd be 21-2 instead of 17-6, and people might be talking about us the way they are talking about Dayton right now. That's the standard of expectation for improvement from where we are now.
Wow that’s probably the most blather I seen in one paragraph in a long time
Just like his favorite line is "Finding Minutes" for guys, do you think the top donor says something similar - like "We got to find the money for my friend Chris".
But, would you really expect to be 21 - 2? You are naming teams we could / should maybe beat, but how many teams win all of those? We won at Rhode Island, are we supposed to also win at VCU and at Alabama? Wouldn't two out of three of those be more than acceptable? I am thinking instead of 17-6 right now, realistically maybe turn that into 18-5 or at best 19 - 4. Not win all 4 of the games you mentioned, but just split the four and there's your improvement. Keep in mind our last two tourney teams in 2010 (7 seed) and 2011 (sweet 16) were 17- 6 through 23 games. We can all hope for 21-2, but, wow, I would hope that would not be expected.
Put me in the corner of George Santayana who said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Our basketball program personifies that quote.
We know Mooney's performances, coaching strengths & weaknesses, accomplishments & failures. There's enough body of work to see repeating patterns & trends.
I fear that we are living in perpetuity with Mooney. There's always a reason to hang onto him, always a justifcation point, always a next year hope.
He has been praised and criticized up & down.
I just want to know when I'm going to see us in the NCAA's again. If not this year, next year? If not next year, the year after that? If not then...when?
And when is when enough?
Sometimes bringing back a lot of minutes leads to a big jump in performance. New players aren't the only reason a team improves (see Richmond 2009 -> 2010).
This year 66% of our minutes are played by the same players that used them last year, good for 38th most returning minutes in the country. This led to a huge improvement in performance, it is not just Blake and Burton. We might not expect as large a jump next year, but we will likely have ~75% of our minutes being played by the same players and should expect to improve (as we had in 2010). Experience matters a lot, both individually, and as a team.
I mean, yeah, honestly I would expect that. We'll have a team of seniors, including three fifth-year seniors. The best class ever. Hopefully coming off an NCAA berth this year. The potential to be the best team in school history. Four 1,000-point scorers. I agree we should be better than this year, and if the only way we are better is that we would have won one or two more games, that's barely an improvement. Next year, if things go according to plan and we actually improve, we should expect to be ranked in the top 25 most of the season and win most of our games.
Fatherspider, as sman mentioned 1 argument to extension is having 2 years left on deal forces something. Forces a dismissal is the better argument. But I disagree it forces an extension. It is far from an absolute. There are plenty of coaches who recruit w 2 years. Worst case you do nothing. A new coach will have his own recruiting contacts and abilities (likely much better than Mooney's too) when he comes in we'll be fine there. Any notion to say oh my we have to protect a big class coming in...hogwash.
This the deal as I see it. U have the highest paid employee at the school. We gave a 10 year deal, with 1 year added on, we've been extremely patient, he's been employed for 90% of that original deal. You cannot...cannot give an employee millions of dollars especially your highest paid guy, one of the faces of UR a reward for consistently not meeting your main goal. I mean who does that? Come on we're an anomaly. We can't have those standards, or lack thereof. Without NCAA this year is 9 long years. NINE. And he's 6-19 currently vs. VCU. 6 & freaking 19.
And we're going to say great job here's millions more for that performance? We are going to claim we're a highly selective university that asks our constituency to pay 60k a year and we are accepting of that. I wouldn't want to send my sons to UR if that is how we operate. Great optics along with it just being wrong. Sorry you give another guy the chance. That is how it works. and yes your highest paid people have higher standards. This is not a minimum wage job. It is completely unacceptable to reward that kind of performance. 9 years no NCAA, 6-19. Face the facts. They stare us in the face every day and only get worse. Big hat no cattle Hardt says he's a Meat & Potatoes guy. Where's the meat? He'd be the biggest hypocrite there is giving away an extension.
NCAA or bust. Make it this year, then earn a short reprieve.
This the deal as I see it. U have the highest paid employee at the school. We gave a 10 year deal, with 1 year added on, we've been extremely patient, he's been employed for 90% of that original deal. You cannot...cannot give an employee millions of dollars especially your highest paid guy, one of the faces of UR a reward for consistently not meeting your main goal. I mean who does that? Come on we're an anomaly. We can't have those standards, or lack thereof. Without NCAA this year is 9 long years. NINE. And he's 6-19 currently vs. VCU. 6 & freaking 19.
And we're going to say great job here's millions more for that performance? We are going to claim we're a highly selective university that asks our constituency to pay 60k a year and we are accepting of that. I wouldn't want to send my sons to UR if that is how we operate. Great optics along with it just being wrong. Sorry you give another guy the chance. That is how it works. and yes your highest paid people have higher standards. This is not a minimum wage job. It is completely unacceptable to reward that kind of performance. 9 years no NCAA, 6-19. Face the facts. They stare us in the face every day and only get worse. Big hat no cattle Hardt says he's a Meat & Potatoes guy. Where's the meat? He'd be the biggest hypocrite there is giving away an extension.
NCAA or bust. Make it this year, then earn a short reprieve.
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He's had "clarity" through 2021 for almost 9 years, and through 2022 since Gill. That's a year beyond the matriculation-to-graduation of #bestclassever, even the ones who stay for five years! How much more clarity could he need? Excuses, excuses.
If other coaches are whispering about the heat of his seat, that's his fault for doing less with more.
Most of our games, yes, but 21-2? Yikes! Mid major Houston is ranked 20th and is 19-5. Mid major Creighton is ranked 23rd and is 18-6. Winning 1 or 2 more games would make us a lot better, especially if they are the right teams. I would say maybe 5 teams would expect to be 21-2 through 23 games next year. Only five teams have two or fewer losses right now. We can just disagree because I don't think we should be one of the teams to expect that.
I'd say Mooney would need a huge set of balls to blame recruiting on contract clarity over his own failure to make NCAA in 8 years going on possibly 9. But not sure the balls still exist when you look at so many things...the natural salty mouth gone away from blue hair complaints, not fighting hard enough on Bernard admittance, letting Lunardi & Hardt possibly get 1 over him on the OOC schedule tho he was more likely in on it all along, & maybe the worst...the no shame accepting of compliments for how well we play vs. VCU when he's an embarrassing 6-19 all time.
Fantastic post!!!! This is what reality looks like!!!!
I agree - experience counts for a lot. I have always though the main reason that back to back NCAA teams were so good was because defensively they were excellent. And reason they were excellent - they played the match-up/switching/amoeba like zone Mooney likes, they had the overall personnel to do it - and since they had so much experience together playing that defense - they knew when to switch, when to stay, where guys would be to help, etc. We had 5 guys operating as 1 out there and I hope that is the case next season with these guys and the minutes returning.
Trap, I don't think defense is a glaring weakness. I've been pleasantly surprised overall, though you're correct, it's been a problem in most of our losses.
It depends on how we schedule. If we set up our schedule like we did this season so that we're favored in almost all of our games, then yes, our record should improve.
Creighton is in the Big East.
Well in this hypothetical, we would have played all of the same teams with their current rosters but we would have NEXT year's roster of seniors. So yeah, I think we would have expected to beat THIS year's Alabama team with our roster NEXT year, etc. Getting those four extra wins isn't much of a stretch, I don't think. And if all we did was beat Radford and SLU, I agree we'd be a little better, but not much.
We would be a heck of a lot better just beating Radford and St Louis. We would be 19 - 4, 8 - 2 in the A-10, and likely about a 10 seed in most brackets right now. VCU was 17-6 through 23 games last year, and finished 16-2 and 25-6. They lost to St.John's, Virginia, ODU, and Charleston out of conference. Maybe they did not "expect" to lose a couple of those, but you just can't realistically win every game. Would you really be disappointed if we did that next year?
I agree. Mooney hasnt earned the right to dictate anything here unless he decides to walk. And no way he deserves an extension. The players would not leave if he walks because he didnt get extended. That would be on CM and not UR. He earns the right to coach this team next year with a solid finish but thats it and then we revisit next year. If he doesnt like that plan, the door/ass.
Serious question... where is he going if we dont extend? Does anyone see a better job on the horizon for CM?
Keep him dangling, let him prove his worth for another year or two. If Hardt doesnt think he and the University are 100% in control, its sad.
No, I wouldn't be disappointed. But if you believe, as we both seem to, that we will be noticeably better next year than we are this year, it feels like we should expect more than a win against Radford (who we should have beaten this year) and St. Louis, that's all.
